Narration in Technical Communication

Ben F. Barton

University of MichiganMarthalee S. Barton

University of Michigan

Non-literary texts are being interpreted and studied as narratives to great ad-vantage in many, diverse fields. In contrast, narration is widely devaluedamong teachers and researchers of technical communication. This devalua-tion is unwarranted in light of the complexity, pervasiveness, and potentialpower of narration in technical communication. Research into narration as afocal topic may facilitate a fuller, more conscious exploitation of the narrativemode.

National Underwriter magazine reports the following story (qtd. inPeters and Waterman 55): A St. Louis client of an automobile-insurance company was repeatedly billed by the firm’s computer for$0.00. Perhaps reasoning that &dquo;nothing was required in return,&dquo; theclient did nothing, becoming alarmed only on receipt of a &dquo;final no-tice&dquo; threatening to cancel his policy. He then called his agent, whodecided the best course of action was not to send a letter articulatingthe reasons for non-payment but, instead, to forward a check for$0.00. The client complied and was soon rewarded with a thank-younote acknowledging the payment and assuring him that the policywould be continued.

As our topic is narration in technical communication, you mayforgive our opening with a story. Clearly, the story can be read asportraying bureaucratic incompetency or the victimization of thepublic by technology run amok, or even as a testimonial to profes-sional ingenuity. It can also be read, however, as a meta-narrative, anarrative about the nature of narrative. Specifically, it illustrates thepower of the narrative over the rational or logical mode of discoursein certain contexts: The agent’s solution works because it addressesand fulfills narrative, as opposed to logical, exigencies; that is, thestory evades the demands of logic by recreating a mechanical worldwhere the client’s &dquo;empty&dquo; gesture is the appropriate response to&dquo;hollow&dquo; demands.

But, in extolling the virtues of narration, we’re getting ahead ofour story. For while we ultimately hope to interest you in researchinto narrative in technical communication, we first want to illustratethat non-literary texts are being interpreted and studied as narrativeto great advantage in many, diverse fields. We then claim that, incontrast, narration is widely devalued as a mode of discourse,among teachers and researchers of technical communication. Afterthat, we show that such devaluation is unwarranted by suggestingthe complexity, pervasiveness, and potential advantages of narra-tion in technical communication.

37

The Rise of Multidisciplinary Studiesof Narration

Why should we, as researchers, look at narration as a focal topic inour on-going study of scientific and technical communication? Thefirst reason is a purely formal one: Narration is currently understudy by researchers in many and diverse disciplines, but not bythose in technical communication. Colloquially put, everyone else isdoing it, so why not us? Rephrased in the jargon of narrative theory,our participation in narratological research is required by the exi-gencies of the current interdisciplinary &dquo;master plot.&dquo;

Narration in Natural Discourse

Most of us, of course, are uneasy about committing resources basedsolely on so formal an argument; we may find a more compelling rea-son for commitment in the impressive claims made for narration innatural discourse. Thus, we read, for example, that narrative is

not to be regarded as an aesthetic invention used by artists to control, ma-nipulate and order experience, but as a primary act of mind transferredto and from life .... For we dream in narrative, daydream in narrative,remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criti-cize, construct, gossip, learn, hate, and love by narrative (Hardy 5).In short, &dquo;[m]an is in his actions and practice ... essentially a

story-telling animal&dquo; (Maclntyre 201 ). Roland Barthes would agree:&dquo;[Narrative] is simply there, like life itself ... international,transhistorical, transcultural&dquo; (79).

These are powerful claims indeed, too powerful for some to en-dorse without reservation. For as Sartre’s Roquentin learned, lifehas no beginnings, middles, and ends; such narrative shape is, rath-er, imposed after the fact to make sense of otherwise inchoateexperiences. That is, stories are, as Louis Mink notes, &dquo;not lived buttold&dquo; ( 123). But even if narratives are not primary in life, Mink be-lieves, and most narrative theorists would agree, that narrative actsare primary in discourse and are not, as in the lay view, &dquo;imperfectsubstitutes for more sophisticated forms of explanation and under-standing&dquo; or &dquo;the unreflective first steps along the road which leadstoward the goal of scientific or philosophical knowledge&dquo; (123). Inshort, despite some contention among theorists, the claim of narra-tion as primary in natural discourse remains, and the claim isimpressive.

Narration in Specialized Discourse

Turning from natural discourse to the specialized discourses of aca-demic disciplines, we find corroborating claims for the primacy ofnarration. An interest in narrative in literary studies is hardly sur-prising, but growing recognition of its primacy may be. Much of theexciting recent research in literary studies has, in fact, been in narra-tive theory; its proliferation and success are attested symbolically bythe emergence of the term &dquo;narratology,&dquo; the study of the structure

38

and function of narrative. We refer to the work of G6rard Genette,Roland Barthes, Barbara Hermstein Smith, Gerald Prince, MiekeBal, and Frank Kermode, among many others.

Even more surprising, though, is literary theorist JonathanCuller’s observation that some of the most fruitful insights into liter-ary narrative have been byproducts of studies of non-literary texts byscholars outside the field of literature (&dquo;Problems&dquo;). However accu-rate Culler’s ironic assessment may be, the fact remains thatnarrative is viewed as primary in the discourse of many fields out-side of literature. Culler states the case in historical discourse: &dquo;W. B.Gallie has argued in Philosophy and Historical Understanding thatthe kind of understanding afforded by history writing involves notgrasping causal laws but rather seeing how one thing leads to anotheras in a story&dquo; (&dquo;Literary Theory&dquo; 214-15). In the field of psychoanal-ysis, the case for the primacy of narration is made by Roy Schafer:

Psychoanalytic theorists of different persuasions have employed differ-ent interpretive principles or codes-one might say different narrativestructures-to develop their ways of doing analysis and telling about it*.These narrative structures present or imply two coordinated accounts:one, of the beginning, the course, and the ending of human development;the other, of the course of the psychoanalytic dialogue. Far from beingsecondary narratives about data, these structures provide primary narra-tives that establish what is to count as data. Once installed as leadingnarrative structures, they are taken as certain in order to develop coher-ent accounts of lives and technical practices. (&dquo;Narration&dquo; 25-26; ref. isto Schafer &dquo;On Becoming&dquo;)Peter Brooks corroborates Schafer’s assertion of the primacy of

narrative in the psychoanalytical process, specifically, in Freud’sconduct of the Wolfman case. Brooks finds, for example, thatFreud’s tracing of the Wolfman’s neurosis to a traumatic primalscene at age one and a half was the product of narrative exigencies.Moreover, understanding based on following a story, on perceiving anarrative pattern, has proven fruitful in other fields as well: Witnessthe use of narrative models for analysis of non-literary texts in soci-ology by Robert Nisbet, in anthropology by Misia Landau andVictor Turner, in philosophy by Jacques Derrida, in law by StephenYeazell, and in economics by Donald McCloskey. And the chorusmounts.

The Unwarranted Devaluation of Narrationin Technical Communication

Disinterest in Narration

Given the mounting number of voices profitably participating in themultidisciplinary dialogue on narration, what can we say of our con-tribution ? A literature review finds us almost mute on the subject ofnarration in technical communication. Not surprisingly, our peda-gogy reflects similar disinterest: In one of the rare studies ofnarration in our field, Mary Lay notes that &dquo;narrative is usually ex-

39

cluded&dquo; from &dquo;the rhetorical patterns taught in technical writingcourses&dquo; (158). And, while many technical-communication text-books treat process description, operating instructions, and progressreports-all &dquo;applied narratives,&dquo; in Lay’s view-these textbooks,too, generally omit instruction in narration per se. Similarly, JudithFishman notes the inattention to narration in the textbooks of a sis-ter field, composition.

Reasons for Devaluation

What underlies our devaluation of narration in technical communi-cation ? The reasons are numerous, some frankly speculative. Wemay devalue narration because the most obvious cases of it are asso-ciated with modes of discourse traditionally underprivileged in thecanonical literature of technical communication. Thus, the most ob-vious cases of narration typically occur in the oral and informalmodes of communication-i.e., in relatively devalued modes. Simi-larly, the most obvious cases of narration in written discoursetypically occur in devalued genres. Note, for example, the near scornaccorded popularizations of science, texts that are overtly narrative(Kuhn 344). Recall the clamor in the scientific community attendingpublication of The Double Helix, James Watson’s narrative accountof the discovery of the structure of DNA. Editor Gunther Stent’sanalysis of reviews of the work notes that Watson was widely criti-cized by scientists for &dquo;telling tales out of school,&dquo; for exposingpettiness, vanity, and opportunism among the &dquo;disembodied intel-lectuals&dquo; that traditionally figure in technical literature. Indeed,objections by Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, co-recipients ofthe Nobel Prize, to The Double Helix were so strenuous that the uni-versity press of Watson’s home campus, Harvard, reneged on itsagreement to publish the book.

Equally contributory to the devaluation of narration in our fieldare the methodological biases characteristic of technical-commu-nication research to date. As we have argued elsewhere, from itsinception this research has focused on distinctive, as opposed toshared, features in relation to other discourses (&dquo;What is TechnicalWriting?&dquo;). Accordingly, it has focused on binarisms such as techni-cal versus non-technical writing, exposition versus narration-anunderstandable strategy for an emerging discipline struggling foridentity, recognition, and autonomy, but hardly one conducive toperceiving the value of shared features such as narration. Ironically,familiarity with the work of narratologists provides a limited anti-dote in this situation for, however insightful they may be in theirown disciplines, they are curiously myopic in their denial of narra-tion in technical communication (e.g., Mink or White).

The Complexity and Pervasiveness ofNarration in Technical Communication

But whatever the reasons, our devaluation of narration is unwar-ranted in light of the complexity and pervasiveness of narration intechnical communication.

40

Complexity of Narration

First, consider complexity. For example, one of the key issues in nar-rative theory is the relation between fabula and sujet, between theorder of occurrence of events in time and the order of their presenta-

’

tion in discourse. Insisting on the complexity of the relation betweenfabula and sujet, Gérard Genette notes &dquo;the characteristic effect ofanachrony&dquo; in Western literary tradition (36; emphasis added). ForGenette, then, violations of chronology are the norm rather than theexception.

For technical-communication instructors, on the other hand, therelation between fabula and sujet is non-problematical: Narrationinvolves a simple linear sequence of events, the easiest mode, there-fore, for students to execute (e.g., Fishman 28). But the anachrony ofwhich Genette speaks is, in fact, characteristic of technical-communication texts as well. In her study, Mary Lay in effectdocuments the intricacies of the relation between fabula and sujet inan account of the Three-Mile-Island incident in Physics Today. Con-cludes Lay: &dquo; ... students should understand that seldom does

straight chronological order give the most meaningful account of anevent or operation&dquo; (158). As her analysis suggests, devaluation ofnarrative on the basis of felt simplicity is unwarranted.

Pervasiveness of Narration

The devaluation of narrative is also unwarranted in light of thepervasiveness of narration in technical discourse. Clearly, most of usfind narrativity in histories of science and technology, and in prog-ress reports, process descriptions, procedure outlines, and instruc-tional or &dquo;how-to&dquo; manuals. We all also recognize the narrativity of&dquo;organizational stories&dquo; and the many legends told widely about the&dquo;giants&dquo; of science and technology. These legends, for example,serve in conveying the attitudinal and methodological themata ofenterprises, themata such as optimism (through the story ofEinstein’s math failures as a student), diligence (through the story ofEdison’s dogged search for a filamentary material for his incandes-cent lamp), care (through the story of the meticulous measurementsof the velocity of light by Michelson and Morley), and analogy(through the story of Newton’s conception of gravitational attrac-tion after an apple fell on his head).

But narrativity extends far beyond such obvious cases. Indeed, wecan only suggest the pervasiveness of, and our great dependence on,narrativity in scientific and technical communication.

Narrative in Written and Oral Texts

At an encompassing level are the master narratives that govern thescientific and technical enterprises, and affect institutional values.Master narratives determine the very way research is conducted:Witness the myth of the unique, inexorable scientific method. Theyunderlie the way scientists think about their disciplines: As anthro-

41

pologist Misia Landau argues, &dquo;scientific theories are essentiallynarrative&dquo; (262). Master narratives also underlie the institutionsthat regulate science and technology: Who is unaware of the IBMepic or the Bell Labs saga (Rodgers)? They underlie the editorial pol-icies of scientific- and technical-publication organs. Thus, apublication’s articles in a given subject area may follow a commonnarrative thread: For decades, according to Jeffrey Marsh, the doc-trine of mutually assured destruction underlay every article onnuclear policy published in Scientific American.

At an intermediate level in scope, one finds narrativity in suchdiscourse genres as the scientific or technical article. Singling out thescientific articles for attention, sociologist Joseph Gusfield reviews45 &dquo;research papers on the issue of drinking and driving, treating thescientific document as a literary, artistic product&dquo; (16). In his analy-sis of a representative paper, he finds narrative form, and aparticular kind at that. Drawing from Northrup Frye’s taxonomy ofnarrative modes of emplotment-tragedy, comedy, romance, andsatire-Gusfield labels as tragic the story that shifts the focus ofmedical attention and enforcement policies from &dquo;social drinkers&dquo;to &dquo;problem drinkers&dquo; (29). His identification of a tragic mode ofemplotment stems from his focus on the fate of the actants, or re-search subjects, discussed in the article. With focus, however, on thefate of the researcher as implied protagonist, the story is best seen asa romance-as a quest (for &dquo;truth&dquo;) in which obstacles (or &dquo;igno-rance&dquo;) are overcome and the hero emerges triumphant (or &dquo;moreknowledgeable&dquo;). The story, then, is not tragic, for science is, asMichael Serres so brilliantly argues, &dquo;an infinite game in which wealways win&dquo; (22). Thomas Edison would agree. When asked if hewere not discouraged after countless &dquo;failures&dquo; in his search for afilamentary material for the incandescent lamp, he replied &dquo;No-Iknew 10000 things that do not work.&dquo;

Also at an intermediate level are such projective scientific texts asscenarios, scripts, frames, simulations, games, case studies, and&dquo;what-if’ or &dquo;worst-case&dquo; analyses. These texts often involve ac-counts of event sequences associated with plausible human-behavioral patterns in given contexts. The texts frequently take theform of flexible plots-that is, &dquo;slotted&dquo; narratives with optionalevent sequences-that are provided with concretes, or specifics,only at instantiation. Such narrative structures are proliferating incurrent research and development related to computer-based sys-tems for knowledge representation, e.g., for decision support andartificial intelligence.

At a lower level still are the equations of science and technology,which may be regarded as highly condensed narratives. Such an in-terpretation is manifest in the case of &dquo;story problems,&dquo; wherereduction of a story to a soluble set of equations is a central issue.Consider, too, the &dquo;quantitative laws&dquo; (Kyburg) of science, e.g.,Ohm’s or Boyle’s Law, that are expressed in equations and subject toexperimental verification or refutation. These equations, ubiqui-tous in both science and technology, are &dquo;shorthand&dquo; representa-

42

tions whose meanings depend on procedural descriptions incorpo-rating tacit knowledge-descriptions that, as we have noted, arewidely regarded as narrational.

Moreover, even if we restrict attention to the level of symbolism,we find that rule-governed procedures are essential forinterpretating equations. Consider, for example, the evaluation of xin the equationx=aXb+cld

for given values of a, b, c, and d. Lacking interpretive rules, we areunsure whether a X b + c, or only c, is divided by d. Under a typical&dquo;precedence rule,&dquo; the division operation is performed first and theaddition operation last, so we know that our final possible interpre-tation is &dquo;correct.&dquo; Thus, cld is evaluated first, then a X b, afterwhich these results are added to obtain the value of x. Interestingly,the given precedence rule leads to an evaluation procedure that doesnot follow the linear order of the equation’s transcription. Viewed interms of narrative theory, this disparity exemplifies the characteris-tic anachrony between fabula and sujet mentioned earlier.

At the lowest level considered here, narrativity may be found inthe &dquo;things&dquo; and concepts associated witli science and technology. In&dquo;Things are Stories,&dquo; Eugene Bar contends that objects and conceptsare linked reflexively with internal schemata governing human ac-tions. Thus, these objects and concepts are constituted as such bybeing assimilated in action schemata and are apprehended only in-sofar as they evoke these schemata. Citing as an example Nietzsche’s&dquo;critique of the concept ‘movement,’ as used in classical physics,&dquo;Bar shows that &dquo;it involves sensory schemata of something which ismoved, i.e., a subject-object schema, an actor-act-acted-upon sche-ma, a cause-effect schema&dquo; (199). Moreover, in light of thenarrativity widely imputed to procedural or operational descrip-tions, Bar’s notion of concepts as stories seems compatible withPercy Bridgman’s notion of &dquo;operational definitions&dquo; for the funda-mental concepts of physics. According to Bridgman, &dquo;we mean byany concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is sy-nonymous with the corresponding set of operations&dquo; (5).

Narrative in Visuals

But narrative is found not only in written and oral texts; it occurs invisuals as well. For despite the popular view that visual-in contrastto verbal-texts are comprehended holistically, that is, taken-in at aglance, the interpretation of visuals involves more often than not theconstruction of a plausible narrative. We take a case other than theflowcharts and circuit diagrams already acknowledged asnarrational in the literature: Consider Gerald Holton’s analysis of aphysicist’s interpretation of a bubble-chamber photograph in a tech-nical report:

... the [interpretation] of a bubble-chamber photograph is cast largely interms of a life-cycle story. It is a story of evolution and devolution, of

43

birth, adventures, and death. Particles enter on the scene, encounter oth-ers, and produce a first generation of particles that subsequently decay,giving rise to a second and perhaps a third generation. They are charac-terized by relatively short or relatively long lives, by membership infamilies or species (Scientific Imagination 17).

The narrativity of the visual interpreted is clear. Moreover, Holtonsuggests that narrativity is not atypical in scientific and technicalvisuals (Thematic Origins).

The Potential Advantages of Narrationin Technical Communication

To recognize that narration in technical communication is morecomplex and pervasive than our literature suggests is, however, notenough. Narration will be valued in technical communication only ifwe appreciate its potential advantages. What, then, are the potentialadvantages of narration?

General AdvantagesViewed broadly, the literature suggests general advantages thatshould intrigue the technical communicator: Experimental studiessuggest that narrative, as opposed to expository, texts are read faster(Graesser, Hoffman, and Clark), processed more effectively(Britton), and remembered better (Thorndyke; Graesser, Haupt-Smith, Cohen, and Pyles). Michael McGuire argues that narrativetexts are more believable and persuasive than exposition; theirgreater rhetorical power stems from the fact that they are &dquo;more con-crete and more easily grasped than universals&dquo; (134). Thecompelling power of the concrete over the abstract and the link ofthe former to narrative are shown in experiments reported byNisbett, et al. Perhaps their illustration makes the point more elo-quently than the writeup of their experiment and is worth quoting infull:

Let us suppose that you wish to buy a new car and have decided that onthe grounds of economy and longevity you want to purchase one of thosesolid, stalwart, middle class Swedish cars-either a Volvo or a Saab. As aprudent and sensible buyer, you go to Consumer Reports, which informsyou that the consensus of their experts is that the Volvo is mechanicallysuperior, and the consensus of the readership is that the Volvo has thebetter repair record. Armed with this information, you decide to go andstrike a bargain with the Volvo dealer before the week is out. In the inter-im, however, you go to a cocktail party where you announce thisintention to an acquaintance. He reacts with disbelief and alarm: &dquo;AVolvo! You’ve got to be kidding. My brother-in-law had a Volvo. First,that fancy fuel injection computer thing went out. 250 bucks. Next hestarted having trouble with his rear end. Had to replace it. Then the trans-mission and the clutch. Finally sold it in three years for junk.&dquo; The logicalstatus of this information is that the N of several hundred Volvo-owningConsumer Reports’ readers has been increased by one, and the mean fre-

44

quency of repair record shifted by an iota on three or four dimensions.However, anyone who maintains that he would reduce the encounter tosuch a net informational effect is either disingenuous or lacking in themost elemental self-knowledge. (129)

Assistance in Solving Problems

Such general advantages aside, narration will be truly valued only ifit helps us perceive and solve problems we couldn’t, or didn’t, ad-dress before. Consider a chronic problem, a problem encapsulatedin the expression &dquo;two-cultures syndrome.&dquo; Noting the ever-widening communication gap between &dquo;specialist&dquo; and &dquo;ordinarycitizen,&dquo; and the failure of classical rhetoric to bridge this gap, S.Michael Halloran calls for a new rhetorical focus on the &dquo;fundamen-tal problem of why the gap between the [specialist’s] and [ordinarycitizen’s] world is so broad and how one might bridge it successfully&dquo;(625). For social scientists, according to Martin Rein, narration pro-vides the new focus called for by Halloran. Rein advocates a new rolefor social scientists involved in formulating public policy:

The giving of advice and the design of social programmes [should be] likethe telling of relevant stories ... [to] provide an interpretation of a com-plex pattern of events with normative implications for action, and notwith a universal law. (266)

Similarly, for scientists and technologists, rhetorician WalterFisher advocates narration in &dquo;public moral argument.&dquo; Noting thefailure of rational discourse in the nuclear-war debate, for example,Fisher argues that the traditional rational mode is an acquired elitistskill &dquo;relevant only in specialized fields,&dquo; whereas the narrativemode is a skill possessed by all and is, therefore, relevant in the socie-ty at large. Employing a universal mode such as narrative should,according to Fisher, foster identification and reconciliation ratherthan the alienation and polarization characteristic of the nuclear-war debate to date.

Thus, both Rein and Fisher view narration as a valuable alterna-tive to rational discourse in reconciling conflicting perspectives inthe public arena. But communication between laity and expert doesnot fail because of a conflict between modes of discourse, onenarrational and the other non-narrational, for both discourses are ul-timately narrational; rather, communication may fail becausedifferent modes of narrative emplotment are used. Thus, the expertgenerally imports a romantic emplotment, the mode we have shownto be characteristic of the technical reports and articles privileged inthe expert’s discipline; on the other hand, in an era of increasing dis-enchantment over the impact of science and technology, the laycommunicant characteristically adopts a tragic emplotment. Com-munication attempts across such incommensurate modes ofnarrative emplotment may be foredoomed, as suggested by HaydenWhite’s study of theory acceptance across different prefigurativemodes in history (Metahistory 430).

45

Moreover, the public arena is not the only place where a technicalprofessional encounters such conflicting perspectives; they are alsoencountered in more typical working contexts, i.e., within organiza-tions. For the old view of organizations as monoliths, withcommonality and convergence of goals, is now largely discredited inthe literature of organizational science (e.g., Pfeffer or Keen). Onefinds, rather, an increasing recognition of pluralism in organiza-tions, of politically-based coalitions with competing goals, and arecognition as well of the need for new communication models tofoster negotiation and compromise in these competitive situations(Barton and Barton, &dquo;Communication Models&dquo; 1984).

Narrative seems a promising candidate: Noting that &dquo;stories areso central to organizations that not only do organizations depend onthem, but stronger still, they couldn’t function without them,&dquo; IanMitroff and Ralph Kilmann go further and use storytelling as a for-mal basis for resolution of intra-organizational conflict and as analternative heuristic to traditional methods for problem solving(18). In particular, the disparate stories of ideal organizations told bymanagers with different (Jungian) personality types help promotetolerance of alternate corporate models, goals, and plans.

Narrative also serves in reconciling the perspective of an organi-zation with that of its employees. Joanne Martin points out thesuperiority of the story over traditional exposition in acculturatingemployees:

In attempting to communicate information about organizational cul-ture, beliefs about process, management philosophy, and someorganizational policies, organizational representatives often find explicitforms of communication ineffective .... Organizational representativesusually resolve this problem by relying on implicit, often symbolic, formsof communication .... The most common form of implicit communica-tion ... is the story. (260-61)

Conclusion

Thus, the potential benefits of narration do not derive only from theenhanced use of traditional storytelling when perspectives conflict,for the perspectives bridged in technical communication are notnecessarily always conflicting. Perspectives are, nevertheless, alwaysdisparate, and varying degrees of disparity may call for differing de-grees, levels, and modes of narrativity. In short, given thepervasiveness of narration in technical communication, its princi-pal potential benefits will not accrue simply from its greater use inboundary cases, i.e., in cases involving conflict. Rather, we need re-search aimed at a more conscious and informed exploitation ofnarration in technical communication, at the use of narration appro-priate at a variety of levels throughout technical discourse in givencontexts and with given goals. But that is another story, a story to betold at another time, in another place ....

46

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